Apple WWDC 2013: a fresh start for everything with iOS 7, OS X Mavericks and more

With iOS 7 in the hands of Jony Ive, designer of most of the Apple products, we had to expect a complete change for iOS, which more or less remained the same as its first edition released in 2007. iOS 7 is visually different, the best representation of “minimal”.

iOS 7

iOS is based on three levels of hierarchy made visible because of translucency. The home screen now is responsive to tilting and background moves along for tridimensional effect. On top of them we have the translucent Notification Center and the brand new Control Center, allowing to toggle on ‘n off the most important settings like Airplane, WiFi, Bluetooth, Orientation Lock by opening in with a swipe from the bottom. Apps now look totally different than before with simple and concise looks among with their respective improvements.

Color scheming isn’t the only revamp in iOS 7. From OS X, comes AirDrop integration for sharing files with every Mac or device connected to the same network. Siri is more intelligent by knowing more controls like turning on specific hardware and checking results from multiple sources. Multitasking is no more just a bar hiding under the screen; Apps views are now showed up while browsing them and can be updated automatically by learning at what time of the day you usually check it. If you often use Calendar in the morning at 8, it will adapt accordingly. For remembering passwords there is the iCloud Keychain (name taken from the “respective” OS X one), by saving and encrypting email and passwords to be entered automatically when logging in somewhere.

Then there is iTunes Radio, a streaming service like Pandora packing a whole number of Stations to listen to from the best selection of tracks. The more you listen to, the better it becomes recognizing which type of music you like. Available at launch only it the U.S. for iOS, Mac, PC and Apple TV, it’s going to be free for everyone but ad-supported if not member of iTunes Match.

Finally, exclusively for iPhone 5, an iOS-equipped car can integrate with the phone to be used hands free through Siri Eyes Free.

Straight to the point, OS X Mavericks finally has iBooks for reading books not just on iOS. iBooks Textbooks created with Author can be used without problems, featuring noting support and flashcards for students. Maps is now a fully-fledged app with all the functionalities it had before. Calendar now presents a streamlined view and optimized inspector with continuous scrolling trough the months. Safari opens websites faster and with less power charge on CPU and learns the most visited websites and, for Twitter power users, it shows links shared by your followers to be read later. Pop-up notifications are interactive; means that if you receive a message from someone but don’t want to bother about opening the relative app, you can reply directly from the notification. Multiple displays extends the capabilities of Mission Control. Each additional monitor, even an Apple TV, has its own menu bar and completely independent from the primary one and dock appears automatically on the active one. Finder has now support of tabs, no more floating windows around the screen or scattered on multiple desktops. And, for document organization, there are Tags. Tags can be assigned to files and folders to identify their context and for search indexing around the hard disk folders.

Power usage

The most acclaimed feature at WWDC wasn’t one of the above, but power consumption. OS X Mavericks is said to be “power smart” for knowing how to extend battery life by reducing every, single activity that might represent a “menace” for battery life. First and foremost it’s App Nap (remember Power Nap, nda), that slows down apps that are completely hidden from others and can’t be watched at and speeding them up when needed. Safari Power Saver disables plug-ins that loads automatically when a page is loaded such as Flash Player. In the moment that you’re going to use them, just click on them to run the animation. Compressed Memory enhances performance of RAM. When the memory is filling and the Mac is running out of room for storage, OS X Mavericks frees the unused part in the background. This way we have up to 1.5x better responsiveness.

MacBook Air

Following the yearly release, the new generation of MacBook Air starts with better price points. The 11″ model starts from 999$ with 128GB (twice than before) and from 1199″ for the 256GB one. 13″ starts from 1099$ with 128GB and 1299$ for 256GB. Along with price cuts, they features fourth-gen Intel processors and their HD Graphics 5000 GPU. Battery jumps from 5 to 9 hours on 11″ Air and from 7 to 12 hours on 13″ one and SSD is 2x faster.

Mac Pro

Mac Pro is probably the most controversial Apple computer. With everyone convinced about upcoming “layoff”, it has been launched in style said to be ready in the near future. All we know about it is cylindric shape, workstation graphics with dual GPUs, PCI Express-based flash storage, high-performance Thunderbolt 2, new-generation Xeon processors, ultrafast memory, and support for 4K video for extreme, over-the-top performance.